: a bluish-white metallic element obtained especially as a by-product in refining various ores and used especially in semiconductors and optoelectronic devices see Chemical Elements Table
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the WebAn experiment deep underground hopes to explain the gallium anomaly. Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 11 July 2022 Thankfully, a gallium nitride (GaN) charger provides a significant amount of power to numerous devices simultaneously—and without taking up a lot of space. Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, 27 June 2022 The range was pretty high, from less than a year for gallium and selenium to nearly 200 years for gold. John Timmer, Ars Technica, 20 May 2022 And many metals have production losses of 95 percent or higher: arsenic, gallium, germanium, hafnium, scandium, selenium, and tellurium. John Timmer, Ars Technica, 20 May 2022 Flexibility turns out to be just one of gallium’s useful properties. Kurt Kleiner, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 May 2022 To make bendable circuits with gallium, scientists form it into thin wires embedded between rubber or plastic sheets. Kurt Kleiner, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 May 2022 In spring, expect to come across dandelions, watercress, day lily, gallium and more.Washington Post, 21 Apr. 2022 Last year, Digitimes reported that Apple was developing new USB-C chargers that would be powered by gallium nitride (GaN). Jacob Siegal, BGR, 8 Apr. 2022 See More
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from New Latin, from Gallia "Gaul, France" (going back to Latin) + -ium-ium
Note: The element was named by the first person to isolate it, the French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838-1912), reported in "Caractères chimiques et spectroscopiques dʼun nouveau métal, le Gallium, découvert dans une blende de la mine de Pierrefitte, vallée dʼArgelès," Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de lʼAcadémie des Sciences, tome 81 (juillet-décembre 1875), pp. 493-95. In a later publication, Lecoq de Boisbaudran explained the origin of the name: " … jʼai aperçu les premiers indices de lʼexistence dʼun nouvel élément, que jʼai nommé «gallium» en lʼhonneur de la France (Gallia)" (" … I perceived the first signs of the existence of a new element, which I named "gallium" in honor of France (Gallia)") ("Sur un nouveau métal, le gallium," Annales de chimie et de physique, 5. série, tome 10 [1877], p. 103). The later hypothesis that gallium was formed from Latin gallus "cock," as a translation of the chemistʼs surname "Lecoq," is without apparent foundation. (Though the evidence is clear, there is on the other hand no indication that Lecoq de Boisbaudran ever explicitly denied the association.)